


With These Hands of Mine

by crane_wings



Category: D.Gray-man, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Allen broke the world, Allen reincarnated as Giotto, Allen/Bad Coping Mechanisms, Allen/Vigilantism, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crown Clown enables Allen's vigilante tendencies, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Nea thinks it's funny, Reincarnation, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-29 10:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13924977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crane_wings/pseuds/crane_wings
Summary: To be the "Destroyer of Time" sounds like a grand destiny, but...no one ever talks about what happens after a destiny is fulfilled.Wherein, Allen breaks the world. Then he wakes up to a very different one.





	1. If I Could Have Just One Wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Endgame? Just start again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3/12/18 - Minor edits to the chapter because, wow, 3AM is a terrible time to go posting anything.

In such a complex world, filled with lies and betrayals and ever shifting loyalties, Allen believes the simple truths to be the best ones.

Take Innocence, for example.

The Heart may be the source of power for all the other Innocence, but once broken down to its most basic concept, it is simply a vessel of desire, a wish granter to the ones with willpower strong enough to command the most powerful Innocence in existence.

And more than anything, Allen _wants_.

He also knows the Millennium Earl and the Innocence Heart are the two leading roles in the play they call a Holy War. Moreover, they’re the only two truly _capable_ of changing the course of said war.

These, too, are simple truths.

However, being who he is - who Mana cursed him to be - Allen can’t accept either the Noah’s exclusive love for family at the expense of humanity or the Innocence’s all-consuming, _sacrificial_ desire to end the Earl’s reign, so he makes a choice and veers off to forge a path of his own choosing. If his decision comes at the expense of turning into the monster the Church accuses him of being, then it’s a consequence he can happily live with.

After all, he’d rather be a monster fighting for all the right reasons than a mindless puppet being pulled along by the strings of destruction.

( _You can’t save everyone_ , they tell him. Both his friends and his enemies. Over and over he hears the same admonition, and over and over he ignores their words because, in the end, _they’re_ the ones who don’t understand.

He _knows_ he can’t save everyone, but “Allen” cannot stop trying. To love and save humans and akuma alike is “Allen’s” creed, more than that, it's his purpose for existing. Should he ever give up, his mask of “Allen” might as well be useless; and he’s been “Allen” – and _only_ “Allen” – for so long he doesn’t have any other masks fall back on.

“Red” is too outdated and he cannibalized too much of that angry, broken child to make “Mana’s Allen." In the same vein, “Mana’s Allen” is near worthless without Mana to teach him how to care for another human beyond himself – in the contrary, the clown also inadvertently taught him how to distance himself from others on a whole new level by creating various masks then discarding them whenever it came time to move on – and this mask was eventually sacrificed to form the foundation upon which he created the current “Exorcist Allen,” the polite teen who cares too much and collects regrets as easily as he cheats at cards. Though, honestly, even if he _can_ pull out either of those dusty, old masks again, he _won’t_ because “Allen” is too deeply defined by a promise he made to a dead man. The one promise he can’t convince himself to break., 

Sometimes, he thinks he's made too many promises, to both the living and the dead, and he's terrified that, someday, the promises will pile up until he loses sight of the most important one.)

So, he unearths the learned ruthlessness from his run as “Red,” pulls on Nea’s obsessive nature, and integrates both aspects into “Allen’s” personality, before single-mindedly jumping into the fray to _carve out_ his own finale.

And when he stands in the aftermath, holding the shining Innocence Heart – _ripped from its Accommodator, one life sacrificed for the sake of the many, isn’t that irony at its finest?_ – in his clawed left hand and the Earl’s Dark Matter sword – _Mana, my brother, my father, isn’t it enough that you/I killed me/you once? How many times must we repeat this tragic cycle?_ – in his white-clad right, Allen decides he can't accept this terrible world that creates reluctant weapons out of innocent humans.

( _“I am the Noah who will destroy everything,”_ Nea once told him, the first time they met face-to-face, and Allen has grown reluctantly fond enough of the Noah since then to step forward and keep Nea from becoming a liar. Because while “Allen” is not the same as “Nea,” their souls _are_ intertwined as tightly as Crown Clown is bonded to Allen, and every action made by one might as well be an extension of the other’s.

In a blend of his and Nea’s logic, it makes a kind of horrific sense for Allen to save those he loves by destroying everything.

 _Killing two birds with one stone_ , he thinks wryly.)

Tipping his left hand, he lets the most powerful Innocence in existence fall to the ground.

“I reject it,” he says in a voice filled with resolve. Nea stirs in the back of his mind, a wordless inquiry, and Allen responds by positioning the Dark Matter sword above the Heart. “I reject this world you and the Earl created with your feud.”

Because in the end, the Heart is, at its core, the vessel of desire, the wish granter.

And more than anything, Allen _wants to save everyone_.

 

***

 

“I can’t believe this…to think he made us wait over fifty years and he’s not— _oww_!” The speaker yelps when a bolt of fluorescent green energy jumps to his hand and races up his entire arm, immediately numbing the entire limb. Gritting his teeth as the sharp stabs of pain slowly fade into an unpleasant tingling, Nea scowls down at the still crackling cube sitting in the palm of his hand and emanating an air of smugness. “What do you think you’re doing, you useless hunk of rock? Want me to toss you into the sewers again? I’m sure _he’ll_ appreciate having to go dig you out of there.”

The hair-raising energy vanishes with a sulky snap.

Huffing, he switches to cube to his other hand, doing his best to ignore the pins-and-needles sensations, and leans forward again to peer over the cracked ledge of the roof and into the window of the apartment opposite them, where a tiny child can just barely be seen from this angle. He drapes his upper body over the ledge and lets his left arm dangle over the filthy alleyway far beneath – one which contains a suspiciously rust-brown stain to go along with this suspiciously cracked roof ledge, and the story’s _got_ to be worth hearing since someone went through the effort to carve _“fuck you”_ pretty deeply into the masonry – while making sure to keep the child in his line of vision.

The head of spiky blond hair suddenly turns towards the window, and amber brown eyes blink up at them, or at least in their direction. Nea lazily stares back, unworried; confident his sorcery will keep the Innocence and himself hidden from human eyes.

It’s uncanny how the child can pinpoint their location up on the roof, but no matter how special Allen’s reincarnated form may or may not be, he's still only human. And as expected, the child quickly loses interest in staring out into empty space and goes back to smacking two wooden blocks together. It doesn't look like an exciting activity to Nea, but he also isn't interested enough to try to understand the simple minds of children.

“Hmm. What do you think, Crown Clown? Maybe Allen just doesn’t want to remember us.”

The cube gains an offended air and throws off a few harmless warning sparks at him.

“Oh, get off your high horse, Innocence. You _want_ him to remember a life where he killed his father figure twice? And here, I expected _you_ , out of the two of us, to be the one happy about Allen getting the chance to life a normal life." The Noah makes a noise of disgust. "What happened to _me_ being the bad guy?”

“ _Mamma_ ’s home, Giotto!” A pair of feet steps into their limited window view, and the child’s answering smile is as bright as the sun as he raises arms to be picked up. “Were you a good boy while I was gone?”

The Innocence’s irritation softens around the edges to let uncertainty seep into the emotional projection.

“…We’ll keep an eye on him,” Nea says eventually. “It's still early yet. If he regains his memories of being Allen, then we’ll make contact. If not, we’ll just make sure he can survive past seventeen this time around. Agreed?”

After a long moment, Crown Clown reluctantly pulses an agreement.

“Good. Glad I can reach an agreement with a _rock_ ,” he mutters and ignores the light, retaliatory zap numbing his fingers.

Having seen enough, Nea uses the ledge to stand up and tucks the Innocence cube into the inner pocked of his coat, chest aching fiercely under the onslaught of his own memories: the scent of Katerina’s light, flowery perfume; her unfortunate tastes in jokes; her fingers combing through his hair while they sat vigil at Mana’s bedside; blood bubbling past her lips and down her chin while the Earl of Millennium stood over her; the coppery scent of newly blooming flowers thickly coating his tongue.

A deep breath in, release. Repeat.

The usual odor of filth and neglect eventually blots out the sense-memory, and Nea’s once again aware of the prickly sensation of having Innocence so close to his body.

He’s almost grateful.


	2. Bite Your Tongue and Raise Your Fists

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allen's pretty sure THIS is not what people mean when they say they had an 'out of body experience.'

He hears voices in the distance.

Allen can’t understand what they’re saying, but the rough, angry tones cut through the murky haze of his mind, pulling him towards the waking world. Sensations seep into his awareness, starting with the vicious stabbing headache centered somewhere around the back of his head, then leading up to the many aches all over the rest of his body and the horrible reek of old trash invading his nose. Forcing his eyes open, a quiet whimper crawls out of his throat when the new rush of sensory information makes his head throb painfully.

_Where am I?_

The brick walls on either side of him, the dim lighting and the general feel of uncleanliness all combine to suggest an alleyway, and the first flicker of alarm darts through him. Alleys are not safe places. He has only ever used them to hide or escape from pursuers.

_I have to get out of here._

How and why he ended up in an unknown alleyway can wait for later once he’s in a more secure location. Gritting his teeth, Allen slowly sits up, casting wary glances around the filthy surroundings in search of any imminent threats, before he looks down and his attention zeroes in on the most disturbing thing in sight.

His left arm.

His now _too short_ arm, layered with fat instead of lean muscles, and ending in tiny, stubby fingers. A child’s arm. A _normal_ child’s arm with a _normal_ human skin tone, and quick look over reveals his entire body has followed suit and shrunken down to the same childlike proportions.

_Where’s Crown Clown? Whose body is this?!_

He doesn’t realize he’s on the verge of hyperventilating until the edges of his vision begin blurring, and Allen quickly turns his head away from the source of his anxiety – _not mine, not mine, whose arm is this, it’s not mine_ – struggling to regulate his breathing. There’s an explanation. There has to be. Nea hates not knowing something. Nea will…

_...Where’s Nea?_

The Noah should’ve stepped in to calm him down long before the panic overwhelmed him. His head is too quiet, and he’s acutely aware of Crown Clown’s absence, the gaping hole where the shining presence once hummed to his senses.

_What happened after I destroyed the Heart?_

He remembers that much at least, even if he doesn’t know anything past stabbing the Heart with the Earl’s sword.

A raised voice sounds nearby, and Allen’s head whips around towards it, something he immediately regrets when his head protests with another jab of pain, and his neck echoes the sentiment with a sharp twinge of its own; though, the worry over possible head and neck trauma is distant, nearly drowned out by a sudden flood of _warning-danger-important_. Not quite a voice but an instinctive push-pull of _go-over-there-you-need-to-get-over-there-right-now_.

Cringing, he raises a hand – the right one, he feels a little more sick to his stomach each time he glimpses the strange too-human left one – to his head and pulls it away with a soft hiss to scowl down at the smear of red on his fingers. He pushes himself to sit up anyway to follow the not-voice’s insistent nagging, since he gets the feeling it’s not going to shut up or leave him alone until he does. Standing, on the other hand, proves to be a far more difficult undertaking, and it takes a few awkward tries before he’s somewhat steady on his feet, though the effort is completely exhausting.

He already hates it, this child’s body.

(Allen has spent years training himself to get up and fight no matter how badly injured he is, even if it meant using Crown Clown in creative ways just to _move_ , because he’s long accepted the fact that he’s going to die young, whether in battle or the eventual strain of his parasitic Innocence breaking his body apart from the inside out. So, he pushes and pushes and pushes his body to the breaking point, then _beyond_ because he, not even once, ever planned for a future beyond the Holy War.

His body may have been falling apart at the seams from the punishing demands he places on himself, but even so, it had been _strong_.

To be brought down to this point where a knock on the head and a variety of aches and bruises can leave him near helpless…Allen wants to take a page from “Red’s” book and snap and rage at the world.)

Using the wall to steady himself, he carefully places one foot in front of the other, a task made more complicated with the way the world is spinning around him. His stomach isn’t doing all that much better, so he unhappily upgrades the head trauma to ‘most likely a concussion, and damn it, that means I have to stay awake for who knows how long because no one’s around to wake me up every few hours to make sure I don’t _die_ in my sleep.’

The raised voice comes again, speaking in a language he can’t quite make out – only that they’re not speaking English – and two others join in. Three men, then? Whoever those men are, they don’t sound like pleasant people. In fact, they bring to mind Cosimov, and Allen grimaces at the unwelcome reminder of “Red’s” main tormentor. Edging around the trashcans blocking his vision, he stops, breath hitching, not at the sight of three large men arguing amongst each other, but at the fourth person laid out on the ground at their feet. The figure, which looks more feminine the longer he stares, isn’t moving, and he can’t tell from this distance if she’s dead or just unconscious.

He really hopes it’s the former.

The not-voice blares another wordless warning, and Allen stumbles forward a few steps without thought, only knowing that he _needs_ to get to the too-still woman.

Unfortunately, his stumbling movements draw men’s attention, and he freezes under their leer. One of them barks something at him, but the foreign words fly over his head, leaving Allen to stare blankly at them in the hopes of them either switching to English, or better yet, just leaving altogether so he can go check on the woman they assaulted. The man snaps at him again – the language sounds vowel-heavy, flowing in a way that vaguely reminds him of the lilt of Tyki’s accent. Not Portuguese then but something similar. Spanish maybe? Italian? – and anger bleeds into his tone when Allen still doesn’t respond.

Then he’s motioning to his two friends, and they step over the woman’s prone body to approach him.

Allen instinctively shifts onto the balls of his feet, sliding into a defensive position with his left arm – he inwardly flinches again at seeing the normal arm in Crown Clown’s place – raised to either strike or deflect an attack. The not-voice suddenly switches track, pointing out inconsistencies and tiny details – the one on the right is ever so slightly favoring his right leg, possibly an older injury, he’ll be a little slower; the one on the left has scratches and bite marks on his hands, he’ll probably be the one to try for a grab; the one trailing behind the other two, the apparent leader of the three is arrogant, overconfident, he’ll want to watch rather than physically involve himself  – Allen can potentially use to his advantage.

He’s afraid – of course he is, he can’t help anyone, much less that woman, if he gets any more injuries, and he’s already in a bad enough state that he doubts if he can fight in this childlike body without some sort of weapon – but he can’t run away either.

“Red,” who had nothing to live for, still fought tooth and nail to survive in an unfair world, so how can “Allen,” who has promises to keep, back down and give up when there’s someone else’s life on the line?

At the very least, he can draw all three of them away from the woman, then maybe someone off the street will be willing to help without them standing over her.

The minion on the right reaches for him with a mocking jeer on his lips, and Allen clenches his fists, prepared to hit below the belt if it means he can get this one down so he doesn’t have to try and fight two grown men at the same time.

There’s a sudden flash of reflected light, and between one blink and the next, the man closest to him starts to fall apart.

_Literally._

Specks of warmth splash across Allen’s face as a severed arm hits the ground and rolls to a stop a handful of centimeters away from his shoes. He stares down at it, unable to comprehend what just happened. A loud crash of metal against stone jolts Allen out of his shocked stupor, and his gaze snaps towards the sound, to see the second minion, gurgling his final breaths and pawing weakly at the huge blade pinning him to the wall.

He recognizes that mostly black blade with the inlaid white cross and sharp, white edges, has nearly died by it multiple times, and last Allen knew before waking up in this place, that sword had been in his hands as he brought it down upon the Heart. Taking a step away from the severed arm, he presses his hand over his mouth to breathe through the nausea.

“ _Tieni le mani a te stesso._ ”

It’s a new but familiar voice – though he can’t place who – speaking those words in a gentle, friendly manner, though a cold chill slides down Allen’s spine when he hears it because he can _feel_ the murderous intent permeating the alleyway, heavily pressing down on him almost like a physical force. Shaking and not knowing why, he turns to look at where the trio’s leader was last.

Allen isn’t sure who he expected to see – maybe the Millennium Earl despite knowing full well he killed the head of the Noah Family, or one of the other Noah seeking revenge – but he couldn’t imagine that it would be _himself_ holding the taller, broader man off the ground by the throat with a single hand.

_My body. That’s_ my _body._

There’s not a single doubt in Allen’s mind about the smiling, white-haired figure, but…

_If I’m over here, then who is_ that _?_


End file.
